Eduardo Saverin, one of the
founders of Facebook, officially
defriended the United States in
September, giving up his
American citizenship for the
more tax-friendly residency
status of Singapore.
Mr. Saverin, who was born in
Brazil and has lived in Singapore
since 2010, plans to remain in
the Asian island nation
indefinitely. Singapore has a
maximum personal income tax
rate of 20 percent and no taxes
on capital gains. He gained
American citizenship in 1998.
A spokesman for Mr. Saverin
insisted his client did not
renounce his citizenship for
financial reasons. “I have worked
with him for over a year, and
that never came up,” said Tom
Goodman, the spokesman.
“Obviously, it was a big decision,
but he’s making all these
investments in Europe, Asia and
the U.S. It just seemed a lot
simpler.”
He declined to say exactly what
simplifications the impending
billionaire would enjoy, other
than the financial ones. The
revelation of the renunciation,
published by the State
Department at the end of April
and reported by Bloomberg
News earlier on Friday, comes
just days before Facebook is
expected to go public.
The decision was in fact made
several months ago, however,
Mr. Goodman said. “Everyone is
trying to tie this to the I.P.O. and
taxes,” he said. “It was never
about that.”
Mr. Saverin’s loss of citizenship in
September 2011 makes it likely
that the process was initiated
sometime around last May,
according to a person familiar
with the situation. People leaving
American citizenship under such
circumstances typically pay an
“exit tax,” which is a final bill
based on all assets.
As Mr. Saverin’s holdings were
primarily shares in a prepublic
start-up company, the valuation
of those assets was very likely
the product of a significant
negotiation. In a financing round
in January 2011, Facebook was
valued at about $50 billion, a
little more than half what it is
expected to be worth after next
week’s initial public offering of
stock.
Mr. Saverin, 30, co-founded
Facebook while at Harvard with
Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin
Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, all
of whom remain United States
citizens. At one time Mr. Saverin
owned about 34 percent of the
company, but his shares were
severely diluted during several
financing rounds, leading to a
lawsuit that was settled out of
court with undisclosed terms. He
now owns less than 5 percent of
Facebook, but he is expected to
be worth over $3.5 billion after
the stock offering. He has
reportedly sold over $250 million
of Facebook stock ahead of the
offering.
Among Mr. Saverin’s other
investments are Anideo, a
Singapore maker of a mobile
video application; Jumio, an
American company that
processes payments based on
image recognition; and
Shopsavvy, an American maker
of software used for comparison
shopping.
This post has been revised to
reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 11, 2012
An earlier version of this post
included a photo published in
error. It showed Andrew
Garfield, the actor who played
Eduardo Saverin in the movie
"The Social Network," not Mr.
Saverin himself.
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Originally Posted by carbuncle
